The healthiest approach in life is often to focus our energy on the things within our control. Finding a balance between perseverance and self-care is important. It’s normal to experience sadness, frustration, or even anger when we don’t get what we want. Breakups, career problems, dealing with losses, financial issues, there are a million things that can put us into miserable frame of mind. Spiritual strength can help us overcome hardships. Spirituality is our connection with the Universal Energy – Almighty.

Spiritual surrender means that a believer makes his attempts to get his desired goals with his thoughts, ideas and deeds in harmony with the Universal Energy whom we call God. When we surrender spiritually, automatically we stop forcing solutions on situations that are not in our control and instead trust and have faith that there is a Divine force taking care of everything in a perfectly coordinated manner.

When we surrender, the first practice comes automatically to practice letting go of things and circumstances we can’t control. This helps us to free ourselves from our fears.  God’s timing and rewards cannot be challenged. To surrender first we need to control our inabilities, wrong advice, identify where we have power and where we don’t. Face challenges in worst times. Don’t give up on friends, relatives in your worst fear/worst case scenario but let go of emotional attachments. Don’t depend too much on others, have the emotional connection with Almighty – you never know God will encourage one of them to help you.

One of my friends Aditya met me few weeks back, and while discussing over a cup of tea, he informed me that his sister was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer few years back.  It was before social media craze; Aditya has a compiled list of people around the world which they called “prayer chain.” It was an extensive email list of people who would pray for known/unknown ill people, natural calamity, wars and many other problems.  Aditya at once emailed them all, asking them to pray for his sister. Each one prayed their Divinity to give her strength and motivation to withstand the harsh treatment for cancer. Forty-eight hours later, the tumour shrank almost by 30 percent! His sister survived. It took her two years, she is alive. Aditya says he surrendered his dilemma, his fear, his anxiety to the Almighty.     

Surrender the situation to God and let Him do His divine work with you! We must accept our powerlessness. Accepting our powerlessness sends us directly into the arms of God where we feel empowered.  

This is story of Nilima, a lady who highly believes in prayers. She always prays to the Almighty saviour to allow her to help people around her. On a freezing and windy day, she was waiting at the post office for some transaction and looking out for a cab to return home. She noticed an isolated homeless woman freezing in a corner. The woman was waiting for little food she looked weak and famished; she had only a tiny cup filled with pennies. Well, sometimes life leaves people unfortunately helpless. In her poor state, the woman looked at Nilima with some hope of help. Nilima couldn’t purchase food with a credit card at nearby shops; all she could do was sympathise.

The woman accidentally dropped her bowl, and all coins scattered across the ground. Though she had nothing to give in return, Nilima rushed to help the woman gather each penny and fill them back into the cup. In a shaky voice, the woman sincerely murmured, ‘God bless you.’

Her words moved Nilima’s heart, and she offered up looking at sky a silent prayer. When she turned around, one kind woman had put money in the bowl while another ran to get her some water. It was a miracle in due time! As more people crowded around the woman, placing money into her cup, a woman asked if she was feeling alright and warm. The saviour, the Father, had heard Nilima’s powerful prayer and miraculously bestowed protection on the needy soul. It might look like a minor incident, but it has a huge lesson when it comes to spiritual surrender. Faith can move mountains.

Whenever we ask for divine protection and guidance for all those who are going through bad weather, natural calamity, accidents on ill conditioned roads, our spiritual surrender to Lord, can keep them safe from any harm or danger. 

When you make peace with your fears and anxiety, they are then less likely to show up. When you become okay with your worst-case scenario, you are no longer bound by a particular outcome or fear because you truly are okay with any outcome. This releases you from unconsciously helping to create the undesirable outcome because you are no longer resisting it nor have negative emotion going towards it, which feeds it. When you surrender to the God, you are freed of all negative thoughts. When we surrender, we become mindful of a higher power, and when we trust in a higher power that is trying to show and give us something greater.

There is no religion in the world which does not highlight the need of surrender to God as the first and the foremost commitment. Surrender is the simplest path to rescue, to relax, to live peacefully in life. In Hinduism, in its holy book ‘Bhagavad Gita’, Lord Krishna clearly says, ‘Abandon all your worries and just surrender unto Me’.

In Islam, a person abides by the five main Pillars of Islam; following the faith means surrendering or submitting one’s will to God. This means that Muslims in their daily life should strive for excellence under the measure of God’s will.

The Christian’s idea of surrender is the concept of surrender to God’s Will. Surrendering to God’s will results in both the surrender of our will to His, in His sovereignty over all things, in which His ways of operating and thinking prevails over humanity’s and Satan’s (Devil).

The Sikhs also surrender to God; they believe true happiness is attained by accepting and submitting to the Divine Will.

Surrendering to God means one doesn’t worry about the outcome of his/her efforts and doesn’t lose sleep if things are not going his way. Also, does not feel morose if things don’t fall into place according to one’s plan. After surrendering to God’s will one simply accepts life as it unfolds, without complaints, discontent, or resistance. God is Universe. To surrender to the universe means pushing yourself through your fears, worries and self-doubts. It means letting go of what you have studied and opening the door to new possibilities. Possibilities that are planned by the universe specifically for you.

Each one of us has a life purpose which is the central motivating aims of our life; the reasons we get up in the morning, the aim we strive to achieve. Purpose guides life’s decisions, it influences our behaviour, shapes goals, offer a sense of direction, and creates meaning. For each person the purpose is different. For some, purpose is connected to vocation, for some purpose is connected to serving society and for some it is cheating the society.

Surrendering helps us let go of expectancies so that when things don’t go as planned or expected, there is no disappointment; instead, there is hope in knowing that everything happens for a reason and has its own timing. Each event takes place at certain time and for a purpose.  A calm state of mind means that you do not become angry or upset, especially in difficult situations. This state in Sanskrit is called ‘Sthitapragya’ which means a person of steady wisdom, the one who has experienced the truth from within, one who is contended.

We fear surrender because we consider it to be somewhat meek state, submitting our power, giving up a sense of self-direction, losing the ability to choose, being enslaved etc, etc.

Surrender goes deeper than that. It is not merely a position that we take during praise and worship; it’s a posture of the heart. To be in complete surrender before God requires our utmost intensity. That everything we are, and we aren’t, every good and every bad or terrible part of us, every inch of our being put down before Him. While doing this, we become vulnerable.

Surrendering to God will deepen our relationship with Him beyond words, but it requires action from within us. It is giving what we are to Him, all the good, the bad, and the ugly. To have strong faith and knowing He will only bring about the best for us. That we are safe in His hands; we are surrounded by His energy, He is with us every inch, every angle.

The action of surrender is life changing. We will never experience more emotional, or spiritual intimacy with our Creator after we surrender ourselves, fully and completely, with our heart and soul to Him.